


blow away like smoke in air

by hawkeyelover



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Analysis, Cuddling, Fire, Flashbacks, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Good Omens Spoilers, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Love, One Shot, Scent Marking, Temporary Character Death, Touching, burning bookshop scene, crowley is not okay, did aziraphale know that crowley was talking about him in that pub?, let’s talk about it, mentioned death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 07:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20254507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkeyelover/pseuds/hawkeyelover
Summary: Crowley comes back to the bookshop with Aziraphale this time after the Not-Apocalypse. It brings back some bad memories.





	blow away like smoke in air

**Author's Note:**

> my first good omens writing contribution !! sucks that it had to come out as a vent piece :’) this is just a stream of consciousness and a lot of feelings i had and it came out way longer than it was supposed to be but hey enjoy

Oddly enough, it’s the bookshop that breaks him. The dusty, messy, overstuffed bloody bookshop that strikes him in his metaphorical heart and cracks him right down the middle. 

Crowley steps in, inhales imaginary smoke that irritates his jagged edges. He wants to cough out of pure habit. There’s no smoke, and there are no broken pieces—the bookshop has been made whole by a miracle greater than both of them and greater than anything they could ever dream to conjure. 

Aziraphale is saying something. The early rays of the sun stream in through the windows; his golden curls are like wisps of flame. A halo of fire. 

His breath catches at the sight. He doesn’t need to breathe. 

He looks up, expecting to see pages upon pages shrivel into embers floating around him, like burnt feathers. The sweet sound of the vinyl melted by fire and distorted into something monstrous and defective. Crowley doesn’t need to breathe, necessarily, but he opens his mouth to scent the air. All he tastes is smoke. 

It scrapes his throat raw, or maybe it’s the screaming. 

_ Aziraphale!  _

He’d hoped for an answer. From Aziraphale, from anybody listening. He could have dropped to his knees and prayed—to God or Satan but why bother praying when your world has already ended? Why beg for salvation when the Rapture has already passed?

_Aziraphale!_

He couldn’t—there wasn’t a body. He couldn’t find a body. Surely his angel wouldn’t have let himself burn? It would have only taken a single snap to extinguish the flame. He wouldn’t have—not his bookshop, not his books. Never. A roaring fire, and not a trace of his angel to be found. 

_I can’t find you. _

Which only left one thing. Crowley would consider himself to be an expert in all things Down Below and the likes, more importantly: hellfire. Despite contrary belief, it didn’t look any different than regular fire really. It would have felt different, tasted different. He would have said it felt like home, but for Crowley, home was not a place,  <strike>but a person</strike>.  He had no home. 

Hellfire had quite the odd aftertaste, like the last dregs of coffee at the bottom of the mug. Like brimstone and sulfur. Acrid. Kind of hung out at the back of the mouth, settling into the roots of your teeth. 

But because he hung around so often, the scent and taste of brimstone and sulfur had imbedded itself into the walls and the books and made a home there. Intermingling with the smell of something literally quite divine. 

He could hone in on  that  particular scent ( _ I know what **you** smell _ _ like_. ) but it was stale, and it could only tell Crowley that the angel  had  been there but was not there anymore. 

The books were burning, and the fire vaguely smelled like hell and Aziraphale had been there but was not there anymore and there was no body which could only mean one thing. Just the one. 

_Somebody’s killed my best friend!_

It was a very logical thing to assume. Perhaps their fraternization had been discovered—but by whom? Heaven? Did Michael and the rest of those wankers decide to off one of their own? Hell? Did his coworkers discover Crowley’s betrayal and do this to get back at him? 

Did it matter, in the end?

_Bastards! All of you!_

It wasn’t important. Nothing mattered, anymore. He wasn’t nice, but he was sentimental to a fault, and so he picked up the first book he laid eyes on—steaming but intact. A souvenir. 

And then everything had happened so quickly, the bar and Tadfield and Adam who had done so brilliantly but the fight wasn’t over. The book ended up burning in the end, after all, but it still had one fruit left to give. 

_Choose your faces wisely. _

_Playing with fire. _

Right. As if Crowley hasn’t had enough of fire for the rest of his eternal life. And dressed in his best friend’s body, he stepped into the flame.

He tries not to think about what could happened if they hadn’t figured it out. If Agnes hadn’t bothered warning them . 

He roared out his rage and the feeling of injustice, and took more than a little pleasure at the fear that colored the angels’ faces. In the end, Crowley was a demon at heart. Nice was not in the job description. 

_Aziraphale!_

_. . . Crowley?_

Wait. That. . . wasn’t right. Aziraphale couldn’t have answered him, because he’d been—because he was—

“Crowley? I do hope I’m not boring you.” Crowley blinks even though he doesn’t need to blink, and tilts his head down to where the voice is coming from. 

His angel is all smiles, as always. His hair is made of sunlight and his eyes are the unending clear blue sky. He smiles, but looks worried. 

“Crowley?” His brows knit and form that little particular little wrinkle that Crowley longs to rub away, and soothe. 

“Is everything alright?” 

He was standing right in the spot where Crowley’s whole world had nearly ended. He wants to say something, an affirmation, but the only thing that comes out are strangled syllables. 

He could be suave right now. (Of course, angel, you’ve got me tongue tied.) But instead he feels sharp edges rubbing up against each other. It burns. 

“What burns? Crowley!” Aziraphale flutters up into his personal space, filling his vision entirely, hands reaching up to—do something. He must have said that last part out loud. 

Crowley is faster, and snatches his wrists up, and croaks out, “Me.” He is weaved of brimstone and sulfur and he can’t— he won’t let his angel burn. 

His angel shakes his head, slowly. “My dear. What on earth are you going on about? I’m not—“ and he stops. Crowley can see gears turning his head, fitting pieces together and dear S—Somebody he is so clever. 

_How can someone as clever as you be so stupid?_

“Crowley.” Someone help him, if this angel says his name like  that  one more time he won’t be responsible for his actions. 

“Before Tadfield. . . at the pub.” Aziraphale says very carefully, like his voice has the power to shatter glass. 

“You said. You—“ His brows draw in, and the edges of his lips turn down. His blue eyes are misting over, or maybe it’s Crowley’s eyes. 

“Oh, my dear.” He whispers so, so gently. “You didn’t think I was. . .?”

_I lost my best friend._

Crowley says nothing and everything at the same time. Something falls apart behind Aziraphale’s eyes. 

“ _Oh_ .”

And, yeah. That was an apt description. 

“My dear. You won’t burn me. You would _never_.” And bless it, the pure, unfiltered sincerity in his voice and the wetness on his angel’s cheeks, teardrops falling from the blue sky like the first rain of Eden burned Crowley more than holy water ever could. 

“I lost you.” He rasps. 

“_No_.” Aziraphale insists. “I’m here.” 

His angel’s wrists fidget in his hold, and Crowley knows he wants to reach out to comfort him—but he also knows Aziraphale wouldn’t dare tear himself away right now. 

“Touch me. I’m right here.” And since when has Crowley ever denied his angel anything? Reluctantly, he uncurls his fingers, long enough to form a circle around Aziraphale’s wrist and overlap still, and reaches out, haltingly. 

It takes him more than a few tries. As if the demon’s afraid the moment he makes skin on skin contact the angel will vanish in a wisp of smoke, a cruel mirage in a world on fire. Crowley crooks his fingers, and very gently brushes his knuckles over the arch of a curved cheek. 

Over the trails that line his angel’s face, brushing away tears. Soft. His skin was so soft, everything about Aziraphale was soft—it’s one of the things he loves most about him. He feels his glasses being tugged off, slowly, as to give ample time to stop the action, but to do that he’d have to _stop _ _touching_ Aziraphale in some way and he just. Couldn’t do that right now.

Some part of him feels exposed. But most of him wants to see his angel with no obstacle in the way. And even better, now, with Crowley’s undivided attention, his gaze intense, he watches in rapt fascination as pink blooms under his knuckles. Like roses in spring. Like the sky at sunrise. Like strawberry ice cream. 

He moves on, opening his hand and moving down to hold Aziraphale’s chin— drag a thumb gently over his lips. Parts them. Feels the breath of him, even though neither of them need to breathe the sentiment is appreciated. Another time, when he feels a different kind of burning he might dip his thumb inside. 

The hand moves lower, and Aziraphale tilts his head back just so, and  oh. The sight of his hand on his angel’s throat, just under his jaw nearly makes him fall apart. He drags his eyes away from the pale column of skin to look Aziraphale in the eyes. Presses his fingers in just a tad. Enough to feel his pulse, strong and slow against his fingertips. 

The open trust in those beautiful eyes has him choking on a sob. They are the picture of calm, smooth waves on a peaceful day. They break him.

His hand slides round to the back of Aziraphale’s head, his fingers tangle in golden curls and  _ pulls_.  Crowley steps in close, to press their fronts together from chest to knees. He buries his face in his angel’s exposed neck, opens his mouth to scent him, exhaling sharply. His other hand releases the wrist in his hold to curl around Aziraphale’s waist, press at the small of his back— nearly bends him backwards in his haste to be closer, to  touch. 

And then, Crowley can—can smell him, at his essence. Like ink and the inside of a pastry shop, like sunlight and petrichor and something Heavenly, too, and that  stupid  cologne that’s a hint too strong and smells like warm spices and vanilla. He can taste Aziraphale on his tongue, crisp, sweeter than fruit from the Tree of Knowledge itself. Crowley doesn’t even realize he’s crying until he tastes salt on his tongue and is confused until—

Hands press tentatively at his shoulder blades, rub up and down where his wings would be. Crowley shudders, gasps between silent sobs. He’s here. You’re here. 

“I am,” Aziraphale assures him softly, his voice is the calm in the eye of the storm, grounding him. “And so help me, I will _never_ leave your side ever again. Are you listening?” 

“Mmngk.”

“I give you my word, Crowley. Look at me.” Aziraphale grabs his hand to pull it away from his curls, and press it to the side of his own face. His skin was unusually warm under Crowley’s palm. The demon grunted, tightened the arm around his back as a negative. 

Aziraphale is never afraid to fight dirty. 

“Please.” 

After a moment, Crowley reluctantly untucks his face but stays close. He knows he must look a right mess, all blotchy and red-faced and tear stained. Stupid bodies. Tear ducts were a right design flaw if you asked him. 

His angel doesn’t seem to agree, turning his head to kiss his palm softly. 

“_Angel_.” His voice is like shredded velvet. He sees Aziraphale swallow at the sound of it.

He begins to speak, lips moving reverently on his skin like prayer. “Why don’t I. . . go make us some tea, my love?”

Oh.  That. That was. 

Crowley can feel how his lips curve into a sweet little smile against his palm, and tries to memorize the sensation. He’s afraid what will come out of his mouth if he tries to say something, so he settles for nodding.

_My love._

“Alright.” Still speaking so softly and carefully like Crowley could fall to pieces even more than he already has. “Why don’t you sit and I’ll—“ 

Fingernails dig into Aziraphale’s spine. Clearly, the distance between the kitchen and the couch was too much for Crowley. 

“ _We_, ” the angel amends hastily, “can make some tea together?”

A faint nod was better than nothing, he supposes. 

“Come along, dear.”

And if they curl on the couch together, tea forgotten and cold on the coffee table, limbs entangling and hands gripping each other tightly—well. There’s nothing to say about it. 


End file.
